[g__day (Matthew)]

I would imagine I have spent 150 hours just trying to optimise my mount (pointing and tracking) and improve focus and remove flexure.

So instead of viewing, I have been tuning for ages - and its all from lack of documentation on a Japanese mount. Only through serendipity and perseverance did I start to work out what I needed! To me I really want convenience, quality and repeatability in my viewing and photography - so all the work goes into getting the base platform right to achieve these aims.

So my needs are likely very different from yours. Once I have the mount perfected it's the optics and then the CCDs I'll work on. If I wanted to take my kids camping and show them the stars I likely go large binoculars and a quality APO on a smaller goto mount or a truss dob. Now if I wanted real high end imaging - I'd select a permanent dark site, a high end mount and high end apo's. At the moment I use the best mount I can afford, a decent SCT and reasonable refractors into a DSLR - so budget optimised choices all around!

Who has the best gear is a very broad question because its subject to needs, purpose and constrains like, time, travel, skies, targets, portability, finance, ease of use, etc... of the user!